Expert on Leonardo da Vinci accuses Louvre of putting the Italian painter's
final masterpiece, St John the Baptist, at risk with unnecessary restoration

One of the world's leading experts on Leonardo da Vinci has accused the Louvre of putting the Italian painter's final masterpiece at risk by carrying out unnecessary restoration work to “create publicity”.

Restoration on 16th-century St John the Baptist, painted just a few years before Leonardo’s death in 1519, began in January and is expected to take 10 months as layers of yellowing varnish are thinned and vanishing details of the saint’s camel-skin robe are made to re-emerge.

Carlo Pedretti, an emeritus professor of art history and chair of Leonardo Studies at the University of California, said the fashion for restoring Da Vinci paintings was a “contagious mania” and accused the museum of making a grave error.

“I’m against the restoration in principle, unless it’s absolutely necessary for its survival,” Professor Pedretti, who has written more than 50 books on the Renaissance artist, told Corriere della Sera.

The painting on display at the Louvre

“One can’t clean in order to restore an image that would have been visible in Leonardo’s time. This is an error.”

He warned the restoration team that “it wouldn’t take much to destroy St John”.

"This business of intervening in Leonardo’s works is a contagious mania, it’s done to create publicity," he said.

His comments come three years after Ségolène Bergeon Langle, the Louvre’s director of conservation, resigned following a botched restoration of Da Vinci’s The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne. During the works, original paint was removed and features on face of the Virgin were changed.

Da Vinci's The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne

"This business of intervening in Leonardo’s works is a contagious mania, it’s done to create publicity"

Carlo Pedretti

To add to the Louvre’s embarrassment, Bergeon Langle, seen as France's national authority on the art and the science of painting restoration, questioned whether there was ever a need to start the work in the first place.

Michael Daley, director of restoration watchdog ArtWatch UK, said there was “no evidence” St John the Baptist could be cleaned safely given the Louvre's recent history.

“The restoration has to be deplored just by virtue of what they did on the last Leonardo,” he told The Telegraph. “One simply can’t trust them to do a good job.”

Leonardo da Vinci's St John the Baptist

Mr Daley said curators were increasingly favourable towards restoration, however, meaning the phenomenon “is growing when it should be slowing”.

“It’s to a curator’s advantage to restore a major painting like a Leonardo because it’s meant to count as art historical research and it creates excitement around the painting,” he said.

St John the Baptist, thought to have been completed between 1513-1516, portrays the saint as an effeminate figure with long hair in ringlets and a face that could be male or female. His skin and curly hair are lit against a dark background.

Vincent Delieuvin, director of conservation for Italian 16th-century painting, said some of the painting’s “details are now in the dark while 10 or 20 years ago, they were visible”.

He said the restoration work would “return clarity to the composition”.